Opinions on the Extend Balance?

I personally think it's good, I have 1 or 2 exceptions. But overall I feel like this is a big improvement, And with time I believe it will get even better (New tech, Matchups ect)

My main gripes are Ragna, Tsubaki and the Blue beat combos.

1) Ragna is too strong. Having the most popular character in BB (Now even more popular) This strong genuinely sucks the fun out of online BB. Over 50% of my games are against Ragna, They all play the same, do the same combos, No variety. Too much damage blah blah blah. Too strong compared to others except Hakumen.

2) Almost the exact opposite of the above. She is far too weak and is NOT viable at high level anymore, Heck, she's barely viable at all (No, I don't main her)

3) Blue Beats work too much T_T

Other than this. Game is the best yet.

Logan / Spencer / Gouki

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Comments

Truthfully, in spite of all the talk about how balanced EX is, I feel it's no better balanced than CS2 - possibly slightly worse.

In CS2 we had:
Makoto was too strong, at least required a high degree of executional skill to use well.
Noel was too strong, and was stupid easy to use.
Tager was weak.
A few other characters (Hazama, Valk, maybe even Jin) sometimes snuck into "top tier" depending on who made the list, but it was generally not a problem.

In CS:EX we have:
Hakumen is too strong, but at least requires...some degree of executional skill to use well.
Ragna is too strong, and is pretty darn easy to use.
Tsubaki is weak.
Makoto is weak.
A few other characters (Hazama, Valk, Tao) sometimes sneak into "top tier" depending on who made the list, but it's generally not a problem.

So we actually have MORE "outlier" characters than we did in CS2. Also, the outlier characters are the source of WAY MORE "WTF were you thinking, Arc Sys?" than they were in CS2.

I mean, for serious. Ragna and Tsubaki were pretty much the SAME TIER in CS2, and Ragna got huge heaping piles of buffs and Tsubaki got huge heaping piles of nerfs. WTF? It's made extra special fun that Ragna is now super common AND pretty much Tsubaki's worst matchup.

Regardless of what changes happen, certain characters have certain tools that make them good, and thus far most characters in this game are top tier for a few reasons. Ability to lock down someone, ability to pressure, ease of use, options overall vs the rest of the cast, etc.

Not to try and down SRK or anything, I do know some people check here first for BB stuff because they don't know about Dustloop or what-not, but I'll get you guys started on something that's been discussed heavily in terms of Tier list placement, and balance changes.

Actually, I don't notice a trend at all, unless that trend is "No character has been top tier twice" which isn't much of a trend.

I'm well aware of what the tier list looks like, which is why I am able to contribute intelligently to this discussion. The fact that Xie feels the tiers are closely packed this time around is nice and all, but I'm not really sure I agree that they are CLOSER. Especially if you use the "ignore Tager" method (i.e. if you drop the one major outlier in CS2, the balance to me looks closer than EX. You need to drop at least two characters from your reckoning to get the same close grouping in EX.)

Well I didn't feel like going into too many details as I am a very "lazy" person, Rachel got dicked after CT, and in CS2 she was fixed to "playable" status as most people I know refer to her as. Litchi got hit hard as well from being Dial-a-combo 4k to work a bit harder, not overly bad, but not as amazing as she was. I'll validate that you believe some characters Tsubaki/Ragna should have more or less been left alone. However the rest of the cast needed those changes. As far as I'm concerned I think it's fine. No one really played Tsubaki from the beginning till now, her character is "boring"(opinion of most people who play this game). Characters that are "too hard"(opinion of most players once again) to learn to play such as Carl, Litchi, Tao, Valkenhayn, Rachel don't get many people on their bandwagon as well, but you can admit, that every character has the tools necessary to win matches when need be, excluding Tsubaki(still has one of the best AA's, though one of the worst FCs), everyone is viable to a degree that, no match-up should be a problem.

Yes, they have a tendancy to nerf the top tier (Though I submit that even after several rounds of nerfs, Litchi is still pretty good.)

I would also argue strongly against the idea that "most of the cast needed those changes" from CS2 - there was a large, fairly closely clumped A-tier in CS2 that basically consisted of everyone except Makoto, Noel, Hazama, Tager and maybe Valk. Beyond those five or so characters, most of the cast needed only minimal changes, and, curiously, that's what most of them got, but inexplicably, Ark Sys decided that Ragna, Hakumen, and Tsubaki needed large changes. I think you'll find that's a hard claim to support in general.

I'm impressed that you know the opinion of "most people who play the game" though. I certainly don't and don't claim to. I would speculate that most people would say that Ragna is boring - certainly, I could make an objective argument that Tsubaki has a more interesting gameplay design than he does, but Ragna is stupid common, so I don't think "boring" factors into it.

Additionally, being unpopular shows no real correlation with nerfs of lack thereof either - Tao and Valk are bleeding into top Tier in EX, Carl and Rachel are very solid. So obviously popularity wasn't the influence here - except perhaps for the fact that less popular characters get less Loktest time, and therefore if Arksys decides to go off the deep end and do stupid things to them, there's less chance of them "discovering" this in the loktest. It still doesn't explain why they would do radically stupid things in the first place.

And lastly, having a good AA isn't very helpful if you opponent can beat you easily without leaving the ground.

2) Almost the exact opposite of the above. She is far too weak and is NOT viable at high level anymore, Heck, she's barely viable at all (No, I don't main her)

Okay, I made an account just to comment on this.

As a Tsubaki main since CS1, I do not agree with that statement at all. The way you say that almost makes it sound like she's back to CS1 levels which is not true. She's still viable, she CAN still win tournaments, the chances of that happening is slim however as she needs to put in a lot more work than the rest of the cast and has a hard time getting through all the Ragna's that make her life miserable (her worst matchup).

Not to say I wouldn't mind CS2 back however, though I find CS EX Tsubaki more fun to play, which is honestly all that matters to me.
If BB3's Tsubaki is a mix of the good from CS2 and the good from CS EX (while still keeping her from being too good, mind) then that would be perfect.

hi guys, I'm struggling to decide whether to invest my time in this game or SFxT.... my main concern is the balance. Are Ragna and Tsubaki really so distant in terms of playability? I don't care about tiers per se but I don't want another game where no-brain characters can destroy more technical ones with just spamming one move....
Thanks!

BB:CSE isn't perfect, but it is waaayyyy more balanced than SFxTK. As to the latter point, there are some characters who still have some extremely potent low-execution BnBs, but really that's on you and not the person doing them, all you have to do is defend properly and punish.

In SFxTK's defense, it still has a lot of potential ahead of it, just because it's badly balanced now doesn't mean it can't be fixed via patching.

The Ragna/Tsubaki matchup is a little weird - it's pretty heavily in Ragna's favor, but that's more because of the way the two characters interact than it is because Ragna is actually that much better than Tsubaki. This matchup was painful for Tsubaki in CS2 when she was significantly stronger as well. When you are comparing their overall match spread, it's pretty close - there are some characters that Tsubaki fares better against, or at least, comparably to, Ragna, simply because of the tools she has available, but in a head to head match, it's not particularly well balanced. Of course, it's entirely possible for even top tier characters to have bad matchups, so you shouldn't base your valuation of balance on Ragna vs Tsubaki alone.

I guess Ragna deserves some buffing for his quickly-predictable close-ups and starters. While I do think Tsubaki was nerfed too much she is capable of dominating any battle with Install-wise pressuring.

I'd say Tsubaki has it pretty rough. She can only really gain meter when she scores a knockdown because in neutral it's pretty difficult for her. When she has that meter she becomes a bit more dangerous but unless she spends a ton of meter her damage never becomes something I'd panic burst over. Although her special moves do redeem her a bit, her corner carry is still top notch.

I know I keep going on about Ragna, but he doesn't need any buffs at all right this minute. They really need to rethink him and Valkenhayn.

Tsubaki's charge cancel is actually pretty bad - the _BEST_ it can be is even on frames, and that's ONLY if she does it after 5CC; Doing it after 5B, 5BB, or 5C leaves her at -2, and if for some reason she should do it after 2B, she's -4. The only real advantage it gives her is the fact that she can reset pressure at any time... as long as she is willing to reset from being -frames, which isn't exactly really good. Compare to, say, Hazama, who can reset pressure with like 4 different moves all of which leave him at +frames. So basically, just mash and Tsubaki loses. In fact, just mash a lot. If you block pretty much anything, she's at minus frames, so go to town. The only way Tsubaki wins is if the opponent respects her too much or if she just flat out outplays her opponent.

Also, I have no idea what you are talking about with Valk's "power coming at the price of his speed" since his 5A is 6 frames - same as most of the cast (like, say, Tsubaki...) his 2A is 7 frames, again, the same as most of the cast. 5B is 10 frames - same as most of the cast and so on and so forth. Valk's normals are thoroughly average in terms of speed - while he doesn't have any especially fast moves, neither does he have especially slow ones, and unlike certain characters whose names start with Ts, he has frame advantage off several normals, and a special move that can be used to close ground and is still neutral on block. Oh, and what "frame disadvantage" does his 5A have? It's even, just like Ragna's, Hazama's, and a bunch of other characters. Completely average again.

So yeah, I don't really think Valk is "giving up" much of anything. Certainly Ragna isn't. Also, I really don't understand why people keep representing Ragna as having "predicatable" mixups. Why is a character that can throw a 20 frame overhead after literally everything "predictable" in his mixup? What's that you say? It's -11? Sure, but it can be cancelled at ANY TIME into a followup with 100P1. And Ragna gains heat like mad anyway. And has some of the best normals in the game from a space control perspective, and gets 4k meterless from his basic overhead - even at max range. Ragna deserved none of the buffs he got going into EX. They could have transitioned CS2 Ragna to EX and he'd have been 100% balanced. (He was arguably a little below average in CS2, but EX is supposed to be a slightly lower powered game.)

I think he should have to pick a bit more between "insane mixup" and "insane damage" - having both is a recipe for an overpowered character. Add "insane movement" to the mix and it just gets silly. About the only saving grace he has from a balance perspective is the fact that he seems to be hard for a lot of people to wrap their head around.

I think his mixup is a lot more important. You can land a lot of hits as Valk. I'm sure landing 1 or 2 more for the kill wouldn't harm his standing too much. He would be balanced. Or possibly remove a couple of wolf cancels?

I don't know enough about how wolf cancels work to comment on whether removing them would be good or not. But 5k off 5B in the corner is a LOT of damage, even for 50 meter. (How much heat do you EARN doing that combo?).

Heck, just nerfing the min damage on his distortions (Inexplicably the min damage on Sturm Wolf went UP in Extend) would go a long way to making him a bit more sane - I really don't understand the logic they seem to be applying here. I don't want to harp on Tsubaki too much, but seriously - was it too totally awesome that she could tack on 800 damage at the end of a combo if she was standing right on top of her opponent in the corner? When Valk can now do 1300 at the end of whatever with Sturm Wolf? Really? And which one of these characters needs Rapid Cancels more? I just don't understand. =/

Valk's frame assumptions I based on a character guide I read some time ago. I don't remember the details but I do remember the author commenting his speed in a negative way. It sounded pretty solid even though it wasn't very specific at all times.

I agree with the damage nerfing, given many of his a-little-more-advanced-than-basic -combos do build up heat, FAST. Outside of comboing, just by spamming Cs you can dish out a lot of damage. Couple of his normals' damage were actually doubled in Ex.

Valk's frame assumptions I based on a character guide I read some time ago. I don't remember the details but I do remember the author commenting his speed in a negative way. It sounded pretty solid even though it wasn't very specific at all times.

I personally think the balance is a bit worse. Like Airk said, there weren't as many problematic characters in CS2, or as many weak characters as well. The main thing that got CS2 were some of the matchups, but to be honest, the matchups and overall balance changes in Extend are not much better.

Try fighting Ragna and Hakumen with Makoto and Tsubaki, and 9 times out of 10 you'll get your ass handed to you. On that note, some of the changes to some characters like Makoto, Tsubaki, Ragna, and possibly Hakumen and Valk make it look like they didn't even try, and used a dart board to decide the changes to the cast.